Creating A Team Building Culture

Posted on March 8, 2013

Synergy, now there’s a buzz word if there ever was one.  So what does it mean?  “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” Everyone’s heard that expression. OK, but what does that really mean? Simply this, an effective team can accomplish more together than the individual members can accomplish on their own. Building a high-performing team culture requires more than just throwing a group of outstanding folks into a room and telling them they can’t come out until they have a solution. Maintaining a team culture that’s highly productive requires planning, communication and decision-making. Assess individual strengths and weaknesses, build support, establish the conditions for effectiveness, agree on your goals—and you’re on the road to building a championship team.

If instead, you lead with your emotions, shy away from hard decisions, cross your fingers and hope that the process will “work itself out”, or if you build a team made up of your personal favorites, then don’t be surprised if your outstanding individuals fail to become your dream team. We see it in sports all the time and it happens in businesses too, maybe even more often. Based on our experience with many of America’s Most Productive Companies, we’ve identified four things you must do create an effective Team Building Culture which will sustain your high-performing teams. In order to create a team-building culture you must do the following:

1. Assess the individual employee
2. Assess the leader
3. Assess the team
4. Create a culture that values engagement

Next time, we’ll explore ways that you can do just that and you might be surprised at the results and delighted to see what it does to the effectiveness of your team.

Betty Streff is a Human Capital Expert and Leadership Coach with Ellison Partners.  She facilitates the LEAP™ leadership acceleration program and helps ensure leaders have the employee data necessary to effectively and profitably manage their workforce.

©Ellison Partners 2013.

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